My first attempt at being useful to the Wesnoth community (other than playing the game, of course).

Criticism welcome, as well as any advice.

Enjoy!

slight

Red-mage

To my untrained eye, the Red Mage die frames look good. But, the Mage ones look odd. More specifically, he looks like he's doing an Obi-Wan Kenobi and disappearing with his robe just falling to the ground.

The red mage looks okay, except the end. Did he get crushed up into a ball, or was he terribly deformed by some disease? And I agree with turin on the Mage. Make him fall foward instead of backwards, like this:

Actually, with the blue mage I was following the death frames of one of the arch-mages, which did the same thing (He seemed to kind of dissappear into his ropes). I had contemplated doing something dramatic (after all, these are mages, can't we embellish their deaths a bit?) like make him burst into flame and then disappear, but I thought that would be over the top.

As for the Red mage, the last frame is supposed to be of him lying on his back, as if he was hit in the front and then fell backward. It was hard to get the perspective right. I assumed that the camera angle is somewhat from above, and not straight on. I can fiddle with it somewhat, but I'm not sure how much better I can make it.

slight

I think the L1 mage should just die. He's not powerful enough to pull an Obi-Wan. Another question - if he disappears, shouldn't his face and hands disappear on the first frame?

And it looks like the hand is still there in the second frame...

and Jetryl said it'd be good for a unit to have at least 3 to 4 dying frames for ity to look good, BTW.

I'll give these another shot then.... I'll give the mage falling forward a go, and I'll try to refine the last frame of the red mage and see what I come up with.

Any other suggestions before I get started?

slight

YES! It sunk in! Someone heard it!


Anyways, another propagandist message for me to spit out - when a unit dies, his body typically turns in some way (your current images are no exception - he is rotating along one axis, from having his head pointing straight vertically, to straight horizontally).

And when the body turns, surfaces that were not visible are now visible, and vice versa. This means you have to draw new stuff, not just move old stuff around and call it an animation.

Death animations are hard - in fact one of the hardest there are to do, and this is because the whole body moves and turns.

Just out of curiosity, is there any restriction (or preferance) on the type of death animation? I had the idea of making the red mage burst into flames and then disappear, but I don't know if this is too over the top, or is not in line with what is expected.

slight

Hmm... Strange, actually. That would be good for a fire spirit (in a Mage's Tale), but I'm not sure it would fit a mage. I know: WINR, but still...

Well, if it looks cool, it probably will be accepted. Generally speaking, the higher level unit's death animations should be neater than a lower level unit. So if you want to do something really amazing and spectacular, you may want to start with the higher level unit. On the other hand, from a practical perspective, it is easier to work the other way around. If you do a simple death animation with the low level unit, it should be easier, and gives you a basis for adding more dazzling effects at high level.

A Second attempt.

Reactions please.

and...

Very nice!!!